Northwest Arctic Heritage Center Tour
Age Range: 5-18 (Grades 1-12, with parental supervision) Take a virtual tour of 3 National Parks in the northwest corner of Alaska. These parks are home to the “wide open spaces, unique plants and animals, the midnight sun, the northern lights, subsistence culture, and 9,000 years of human history.”
When you get to the site, you can watch the 10 minute video, “A Window to Your Parks.” It shows the remote landscapes of:
- Cape Krusenstern National Monument
- Noatak National Preserve
- Kobuk Valley National Park
Then when you finish that video, scroll down to the next video: Northwest Arctic Heritage Center Tour. Get an overview of the museum and hear how Eskimo Ice Cream is made!
Recommended Website: How It’s Made – Evans
Age Range: 8 and up (Grades 2 and up; children with parental supervision) A lot more goes into making a drum head than you might imagine. At this website you can watch a professional video of manufacturing drum heads at the Evans Drum heads factory.
You’ll see:
- plastic film cut into circles
- application of internal flaps
- molding the drumhead
- making the drum hoops
- assembling the drumheads
- applying the “swoosh” sound
- and more
When you’re through watching the video (about 5 minutes), explore the other videos in the Evans’ media library and learn how to tune a tom or snare drum. Watch backstage interviews with drummers and take some free drum lessons.
Recommended Website: Field Trips of the U.S. & Canada
Age Range: All (All grades; children with parental supervision) To help you find field trips that will leave you and your kids feeling energized and excited about learning, Homeschool Buyers Co-op has created an incredible, FREE, virtual data base of field trip destinations for every state in the U.S. and every province in Canada.
When you get to the website just click on the map to find:
- zoos
- aquariums
- factory tours
- historic houses
- nature centers
- cultural centers
- and other educational facilities in your state or province.
Then, head out on the road and enjoy the fabulous learning opportunities in your community and beyond. Your children will have fun and you’ll feel like you’ve made productive and meaningful use of your time. Plus, field trips often springboard kids to a new area of interest that motivates their desire to learn about everything.
Lewis & Clark Exhibit
Age Range: 8-18 (Grades 3-12, with parental supervision) With this website, explore the Northwest Gallery of the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress to discover maps, notes, manuscripts, and more from the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Begin your tour by selecting the “enter tour” link on the first slide. Watch the slide show introduction then the tour begins. In each slide, select an image in the timeline to enlarge. Read through the text then click on the image to get a larger view. Select “Go Back” at the bottom of the slide to return to the timeline. Some images will open a new window with a presentation on the Library of Congress website. Simply close the window to return to the virtual tour. Select “Continue Tour” to move along. Sections of the timeline include:
- Prologue
- Before Lewis & Clark
- Beyond the Allegheny Mountains
- The Spanish Entrada into the Southwest
- Exploration of the Missouri River
- British Passage to the Pacific
- Louisiana Purchase
- Lewis & Clark
- Discovering Diplomacy
- Geography
- Animals
- Dressed in Courage
- Plants
- After Lewis & Clark
- The Journeys of Zebulon Montgomery Pike
- Long’s Expedition to the Central and Southern Plains
- The Fur Trade
- Wilkes and Frémont Expeditions
- Boundary Surveys
- Epilogue-Transcontinental Railroad Surveys
If you prefer not to use the interactive tour, visit the Rivers, Edens, Empires webpage on the Library of Congress site using the link under the interactive tour window.
Not only is this an interesting tour of the artifacts in the museum, but a wonderful addition to your westward expansion studies.
Recommended Website: Everglades Boats – Virtual Tour
Age Range: 10 and up (Grades 5 and up; children with parental supervision) At this website you can watch a video that explains how boats are made at the Everglades Boat factory.
When you get to the site, scroll down to the Everglades Boat Factory Tour to watch the video. You can also scroll further down to see some pictures of the manufacturing process. The 27-minute video goes through each department of the factory including:
- molds
- foam
- lamination
- testing
- audit
- metal fabrication
- wire room
- assembly
- test tank
Although this is basically a marketing video, we thought it was interesting to see the process of how a boat is made.
Age Range: 11-18 (Grades 6-12, with parental supervision) Climb aboard for a virtual helicopter ride with Dr. Ralph (a.k.a. Air Wolf) to explore the scenic vistas and geological wonders of Nova Scotia.
Presented by the Department of Lands and Forestry in Nova Scotia, Canada, this site takes the visitor on a picturesque trip through the province of Nova Scotia. Through the use of breathtaking aerial photographs and closer views of geological features, this site is a geologist’s gold mine of information. Some of the locations of exploration include:
- Halifax Harbor and the Atlantic Uplands
- Lantz Brick Quarry
- Shubenacadie Wildlife Park
- Brookfield Limestone Quarry
- The Debert Paleo-Indian Site
- Striae on Wittenburg Mountain
- Gibraltar Rock
- Lismore
- Moose Point Section
- Creignish Mountain Lookoff
For each ‘stop’ of your journey, the images are accompanied by informative text that not only gives visitors a geographical description of the destination but also provides an in-depth geological explanation of the stop.
Before you finish your tour, be sure to stop by the “Passing Views” and “Vistas of the Month” pages for more splendid views of the land as well as the “Reading Material” and “Links” sections of the home page.
Effortlessly navigate through this site and expand your knowledge of geology and Nova Scotia.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
